A Unexpected Saturday Cry

My mother's wonderful husband, James, is the most thoughtful, genuine person in the world.  He retired early and has been critical to the maintenance of my mother's estate.  But forget administration (bills, cars, mortgage, headstone, etc), he's been an emotional rock.  I lost a mother, but he lost a wife.  I lost a mother, but he lost the companion he planned to spend the rest of his life with - traveling, talking, watching tv, growing old.  He's young and full of energy.  My grandmother and I both agreed to understand if he needs to move on (in that way), but good luck finding another Brenda E :-)

Anyway, he put together the most amazing scrapbooks (yes plural, 3).  Stuff we all take for granted (sort of) - birthday cards, mother's day cards, postcards, etc.  My mother apparently kept them all.  I'll curse her packrat ways when I head to Columbus this summer to clean the basement (back yard fire, anyone?), but right now, I'm reeling from that post-cry headache.  That would be two-and-a-half major cries and 3 mini cries.  It was tough; the postcards were especially killer.  I did do lots with my mother, but we regrettably never got to leave the country together; it was a dream we shared.  I came up short on that one mom, next lifetime.

I also made a decision today.  There is this picture I love.  It is of me and my mother at her 50th birthday party.  My eyes are closed and I am smiling terribly, my mother looks and is tipsy, and there are beer cans and packs of cigarettes laying in the open, but I keep coming back to this picture.  Judgers be damned.  I'm framing it (in this nice picture frame I received from Marie B); this picture is too honest an expression of love between mother and son to be stowed away.  My mom's cute outfit and tight hug over pack of Newports and can of Bud Light.